


A Basket of Stuff

by ViolentMedic



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4956916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentMedic/pseuds/ViolentMedic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various stories of various pairings inspired by various prompts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. York/Felix: Confession

**Author's Note:**

> Basically going to be a dumping ground for all the little prompts and such that I'm intending to fill, primarily via Tumblr memes. Only a couple so far but I have a bunch of requests to fill when I have time. Figured I should put them in one place instead of scattering them throughout my ao3.
> 
> Pairings and characters set to vary, like whoa. So far there's no triggers, at least as far as I know, but if ones appear in later chapters I will tag accordingly and note them in the chapter summary.
> 
> (Also occasionally I reblog said prompt meme things, so if you're ever interested in trying to request hit me up there. I'm violentmedic on Tumblr, big shocker.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Romance Prompt meme (as will the next several be)  
> York/Felix  
> Prompt 20: A Confession
> 
> In which York is a romantic at heart, and Felix... isn't.

“Wait. What?”

York had been comfortable and sleepy about two seconds ago. Tired, but in that good post-sex haze way. The merc he’d met while pickpocketing a few months ago, Felix, he was good for wasting energy with. And for chatting with. And for kind of absently staring at, sometimes. A mixture of Felix’s various jobs with a partner that York was terrified of, and York having to switch locations a lot before people caught onto his thefts, had kept them within a reasonable distance of each other. York couldn’t say the same for anyone else.

The point was, he’d been sleepy and relaxed, but now he was wide awake because he’d said three very stupid words during that sleepy haze.

“Uhhh…”

“Oh, don’t be a baby. Did you actually say that?” Felix propped his chin on his hand, leaning on the pillow as he gazed at York. Far too harmless-looking in that particular moment for a guy who made his living killing people. “Come on. Repeat it.”

“Uh. I might have… said that I love you?”

York was a romantic at heart. His heart fell easily. Given that, even he knew that this was probably a bad idea. But the heart wants what the heart wants. And maybe the fact that he’d never said it to certain people—a flash of red hair went through his mind—when he had the chance drove him to say it outloud the moment hints of actual affection started to leak in.

Felix kept gazing at him, eyes slightly narrowed. After a moment, he slipped an arm around York and curled up slightly to use York as a pillow, cheek pressed against his shoulder.

There was a pause. The sort of pause that made York wonder if this was leading to a ‘I love you, too’ or a ‘get out of my bed, you fucking weirdo.’

Instead, Felix yawned and said, “Cool.”

“…Cool?”

“I mean, I’m good with people being, y'know, madly in love with me and all that.” Felix glanced up at him. “Why? You want me to say it back?” There was a faint derisive tone in his voice which said that Felix clearly found the idea amusing.

“…Nah.” Okay, York would have liked to hear it (and the derision stung a little) but not after being asked.

“Alright, then.” Felix shut his eyes lazily, his breathing evening out.

York could have gotten up and slipped out. But he didn’t really have any other company right now. It was amazing what that would do to someone’s standards.

“I wouldn’t have said 'madly,'” he mused.

He thought Felix might have been asleep, but he got a short, muffled laugh. “Keep telling yourself that.”


	2. Sharkface/Stassney: Frightened Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Romance Prompt meme.  
> Sharkface/Stassney  
> Prompt 17: Frightened Kiss
> 
> In which Sharkface is not all that comfortable with having one hatch between himself and being vacuumed out into space, and Stassney makes him feel better.

Space was fucked up.

Sharkface liked it fine from a distance. When he was surrounded by armor or atmosphere or actual fucking air. But up close, with so little stopping him from being sucked out into space and doomed to float forever? Not so fun. It was kind of like the ocean, so deep and dark, except the ocean was full of life and space always seemed that little bit too empty.

Making swimming motions also wouldn’t do shit in space.

He’d been able to deal with it in the past, when he and his family had gone around on the Staff of Charon, doing whatever needed to be done. He’d had his armor to protect him, and he’d had faith that if he did somehow end up in space that the others would come back for him. They wouldn’t leave him.

But now?

His family was gone. His armor was gone. And he was sealed in a small cell, one button press from being jettisoned into space at all times. All it would take is a guard deciding they were all too much trouble. Or spilling coffee on the controls.

Sometimes that shit made him nervous, and he’d go about distracting himself from the fear by reinforcing his position in this cell. His old cellmate, before Sharkface had been moved to the reinforced cell with the heavier door, had said that tying his bedsheets together would, at least, buy him some extra seconds against the Purge. So when it was time for food to be delivered, Sharkface was in the middle of tying bedsheets to his waist. Just in case.

He heard the sound of the door opening and a couple of footsteps behind him, but didn’t turn around. He knew which guard it was. None of the other guards wanted to tangle with him, so they’d assigned Stassney the duty of ‘feeding the shark.’ It was an arrangement that Stassney complained about to the other guards all the way to Sharkface’s cell, but which he’d grin about once he was actually there.

“Why’re you tying the bedsheets together?”

Sharkface grunted in response as he worked on securing the knots. It wasn’t going well. His hands were shaking a little.

“Come on, you can do that later. Eat the soup before it gets that gross skin on it.” Stassney nudged him in the back with the edge of the cheap, plastic tray.

“Not hungry.”

“You gotta eat, Sharkface.” Stassney nudged him in the back again before leaning forward to stare at his face. “…You don’t look so good.”

That earned a non-committal grunt.

“What’s up?”

Sharkface turned a little to stare at the airlock that was the only barrier between him and certain death.

“…Oh, that? Why, it making weird noises or somethin’?” Stassney put the tray of food down before approaching the airlock. After a moment of consideration, he kicked it lightly. The metal clang didn’t help much. “…Seems pretty solid.”

“Mm.”

“You know we’re probably not gonna use it, right? It’s only for if things get real bad.”

“Eeyup.”

“…So why the bedsheets?”

Sharkface shrugged, as he tightened the knots again. Stassney wandered back to him, nudging the tray towards him again.

“Come onnn. It’ll distract you?”

Sharkface shrugged, sitting down on his bed now that the bedsheets were secure. Stassney sat down next to him. This was not an uncommon occurrence. Sharkface was likely one of the few inmates who didn’t respond to Stassney with heckling, so Stassney tended to talk to him. Or at him. Depended on how talkative Sharkface was feeling that day.

“Don’t like space?”

“It’s better in armor.”

“Yeah, the whole ‘can’t breathe in space’ thing kinda sucks. I dunno. I always thought space was really cool. There’s just so much out there. Y'know? Like, bad stuff. Like the squid-heads and all that. But cool stuff, too. Always kinda wanted to get a set of them fancy grav boots and stand on the outside of the ship.”

The idea of that, even in armor, made Sharkface shiver. Grav boots weren’t infallible.

Stassney kept talking, though. About all the cool things that were in space. As he chattered about planets and stars and shipwrecks and such, as well as the ever-present aliens, Sharkface’s nerves started to calm down. Perhaps because the chatter made space feel a little less bleak and empty. Rationally, that wouldn’t matter much if he got vacuumed out of the ship, but… it helped.

He watched Stassney chatter excitedly for a while, gathering more steam the longer he went on. Sharkface wasn’t sure when he’d loosened his grip on the bedsheets and instead lightly grasped Stassney’s hand. He just knew at some point he was holding it.

“—and then there’s shit like the… the… hey, when did we start holding hands?”

“Dunno.” Sharkface used his free hand to reach up and rub a thumb along the mask that covered most of Stassney’s face. Stassney made a quiet noise and leaned into the touch. “If you hung out here for a while… how long would it take for them to notice?”

There was a pause, as Stassney gave a sidelong glance to the cell door. The perk of a reinforced cell was that, unlike the other cells—which all gave absolutely no privacy to their occupants—no-one would see what was happening in Sharkface’s cell unless they crouched to stare through the tiny barred gap in the door. Most wouldn’t bother.

“Aaah, they’d probably assume I was sleepin’ in the cargo hold again.” He tilted his head and stared at Sharkface. Sharkface couldn’t see his mouth, but he knew Stassney was grinning at him from the way his eyes crinkled up.

“Then… distract me?”

Stassney considered it for a moment before reaching up to remove his headgear. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

The moment the headgear was off, Sharkface pushed him into the mattress. If Stassney noticed that Sharkface’s hands were still shaking a little? That his lips, at first, felt that little bit too dry? If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.


	3. Caboose + Santa: Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Romance Prompt meme  
> Platonic Caboose and Santa  
> Prompt 5: Nap
> 
> In which Caboose decides a temple with an alien AI is the perfect place to take a nap, and Santa is mildly perplexed by the clothes required for such an activity.

Santa had never seen garments such as what Caboose was wearing. His familiarity with human clothing wasn't as good as it could be, and what humans he’d seen so far had normally been in armor. Armor was familiar. This was not.

“Naptime!” Caboose said happily, plopping down near where Santa was projecting himself. The clothing he wore was of a similar colour to his armor, but patterned with faces of some sort of animal. The clothing covered him as much as the undersuit of his armor would, except around the neck and hands.

It had been so long since he had to retrieve data on anything that wasn’t technology or war-based, and so it took him a moment—a moment to him, not a moment to the humans and their slow processing speed—to realise that these clothes were designed for comfort. He’d almost forgotten the concept.

“Caboose.”

“Yes, Santa? Are you going to watch me while I sleep?”

“What are the clothes you’re wearing?”

“Jammies. I thought I’d lost them, but they were in the wrecked ship the whole time. And they’re very comfortable. They have kittens on them!”

“Kittens. That is not an animal native to Chorus.”

“You don’t have kitties?”

“We didn’t when I was programmed to guard the temples. I cannot say as to whether any of the settlers have changed that.”

“I hope they have. I like kitties.” Caboose flopped onto his back.

Santa wondered if he should send Caboose elsewhere. He tried to recall if there were any rules about sleeping on the floor of a temple designed for war. His data didn’t come up with anything specific.

Besides, if anyone had the right to sleep on the floor of the temple, it was a true warrior. And Caboose had been talking to him more and more since the war ended. Santa suspected he was lonely.

Caboose yawned and said, “You didn’t answer. Are you going to watch while I sleep? Just like in the song? Or are you going to have a nap, too? You can nap with me! Naps are best in groups.”

“Computers do not sleep in the same way that humans do.”

“Maybe you should try closing your eyes! Or putting on jammies!”

Santa examined his own hologram for a moment, considering it. There was no harm in the request. His hologram flickered off for a moment before reappearing. His holographic armor had been removed, and replaced with a garment similar to that which Caboose wore.

He did not feel any more comfortable. But Caboose beamed at him.

“Do you feel better, Santa? Now you can sleep!” He yawned again and stretched his limbs out. “Cuddling time!”

It seemed there was little point in pointing out his own holographic nature, so instead he vanished again, only to reappear near Caboose. He settled down next to Caboose, who rolled onto his side and curled up around the space that Santa’s hologram occupied.

“Thank you. Sometimes the others do not want to cuddle. Tucker says I elbow him too much in my sleep.” He shut his eyes. “Nighty night!”

“Good night, Caboose.”


	4. Doc/O'Malley: A Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Romance Prompt meme  
> Doc/O'Malley  
> Prompt 4: A Gift
> 
> In which Doc is annoyed at how many corpses litter his mental landscape and O'Malley tests his capacity for creation.

When Doc slept, he was always in the same place. His mental landscape had changed since O'Malley infected him. Before it had resembled his childhood home, right down to his bedroom. Filled with all the little army figurines that he didn’t like, but always left visible because he didn’t have the heart to tell his mother that he didn’t like them. There had been a little kitchen that always smelt of cookies. A living room with a comfy, but worn, sofa.

There had been almost nothing outside the house. A desert that ran forever. Dry, cracked dirt. Doc had once tried wandering out to see if there was an end to it, but had woken up before getting anywhere. When he’d next been asleep, he’d been back in his home.

Still, his home had been nice. And then O'Malley happened.

The house still stood, but the wallpaper was starting to rot away. The furniture was stained. And there were an awful lot of corpses around. Doc would wander into the kitchen and see bodies strung up from the ceiling, as well as one splayed out across the table. The room no longer smelt of cookies.

He wondered why all the corpses were of the same person. A woman with a blonde ponytail. He’d asked O'Malley about it once, but O'Malley had seemed just as confused about it. In any case, they sure made a mess.

“Why do you have to do this?” Doc whined, as he tried cleaning the stove so he could cook. Or something. It’s not as if food in here would actually fill him, but he still liked cooking.

“Oh, shut up. Besides, I don’t do it. It just happens,” O'Malley grumbled, as he prodded at one of the nearby corpses. He grinned. “It’s my natural capacity for corruption! Muaha.”

He wore armor in Doc’s head most of the time, but he’d removed the helmet. When he’d first appeared, his face had been a mix of facial features that seemed to shift. His eyes shifted from blue to a very vivid green to dark brown, nearly black. Sometimes freckles would appear in patches over his skin before vanishing again. His hair went from blond to brown to black. O'Malley didn’t really have an appearance of his own, instead just shifting through the appearances of his various hosts, which Doc only realised once O'Malley started incorporating Doc’s own features into his rotation.

Today, he had Doc’s frizzy, flyaway hair and dark skin, although his facial features had settled in a way that, strangely, resembled the dead woman scattered around Doc’s home. Doc was sure he’d gotten the crooked teeth—so evident in the way he was smiling—from Caboose. The vivid green eyes, Doc still wasn’t sure on.

“O'Malley, I’d really like to maintain a nice, clean area. This can’t be hygienic!”

“Hygienic? We’re in your head, fool! Any germs are a product of your own weak mind!”

“Even so, I’d feel better if the area was kept nice.”

O'Malley harrumphed and said, “You can’t order me around, I’m a diabolical computer program who’s possessed your meat suit.”

“Oh, you always say that.”

 

* * *

 

Doc, to be honest, didn’t expect anything to change. O'Malley would continue doing his thing. That’s just how O'Malley worked. And Doc could live with a few corpses. At least he had company, even if that company wanted to take over and/or destroy the world.

And by and large, nothing did change. The kitchen still looked unhygienic and… corpsey.

But there would suddenly be long stretches of time where he couldn’t find O'Malley in his mind. Doc could sense O'Malley was around, but he couldn’t find him.

And then one day, there was a door that hadn’t been there before. Painted Doc’s favourite shade of purple. Doc frowned, eyeing the door nervously. He didn’t trust new things lately. He’d been about to leave it along when he heard O'Malley’s voice.

“STUPID PIECE OF DIRT. YOU WILL OBEY ME! OBEY! OR YOU WILL TASTE OBLIVIONNNN!” After a moment, this was followed by more subdued but equally venomous mutters. Now intrigued, Doc hesitated a moment longer before pushing open the purple door.

He had to cover his eyes briefly, because he hadn’t been ready for how bright it was inside. Bright. And clean. The weird rot that infested the rest of his mind hadn’t touched this new room. But this room… it was bizarre.

It was like a patchwork quilt, but in room form. Like a five-year-old had gone through a home decorating magazine, made a collage, then pasted it into reality. The carpet was made of various shades of purple, spliced randomly with wood and in a couple of cases with bathroom tiles. The wallpaper was similarly jumbled, and not one piece of furniture in the room matched. But it was all nice furniture. Overstuffed sofa, pillows, a coffee table upon which sat a pot of herbal tea surrounded by five mugs of various shapes and sizes. Books were stacked in a pile nearby, although Doc could see that the covers were blank, and he suspected the insides of the book were as well. It was all very cozy, for all that it was also weird.

The wall at the back of the room mostly consisted of a set of windowed doors that opened to the outdoors, and that’s where O'Malley was. He was glaring at the cracked dirt under his feet, which looked like it had been overturned a few times. White stakes were placed here and there in the dirt, but most of them had fallen over.

“What’s this?”

Upon hearing Doc, O'Malley spun around, looking like how a normal person would look upon getting caught disembowelling someone. Horrified and embarrassed.

“I didn’t say you could come in here! Out!” he yelled.

“I just wanted to know what you were doing. Did you… did you make this room?”

“No! Why would I ever make such a ridiculous room?!” O'Malley crossed his arms, a pout appearing on his face. That rot that had infected the rest of the home was starting to appear under his feet, but after glancing down O'Malley scrunched up his nose and the rot faded away again.

“Well… I mean… I didn’t make it.”

“Ugh. Fine. I did make it. But you weren’t supposed to see it yet. It’s not done. The dirt’s not cooperating. But it will cooperate, lest it face destruction of a most gruesome nature!”

“Yeah, I could never get the dirt to change. But… why are you making this? It’s so clean and cozy in here. Not your style at all.” Doc took a couple more steps in before sitting down on the sofa, bouncing a little as he tested how it felt. O'Malley scuffed his foot against the dirt.

“Well, you’re the one who was whining about everything being dirty. ‘Oh wah there’s too many corpses out here wah wah wah.’ So I made you a room so you’d have somewhere to go to rel—to not annoy me.”

“Awww… you made this for me?”

O'Malley muttered under his breath again as he kicked the dirt. “No. It’s for my own selfish purposes. Stop ruining it.”

Doc clambered off the sofa and bounded over to where O'Malley was, wrapping his arms around him. “But it’s so sweet!”

“I’m not sweet!”

“I love you, too.”

O'Malley continued to mutter under his breath about how this went against everything he stood for. But he didn’t move out of the hug.


End file.
